When is permission requested before storing personal information in a computer?
Official definition: Some kinds of storage of personal information requires
permission in advance from the Data Inspection Agency. Such a permission will include
instructions of what can be stored and how the stored information can be used. To
use the personal information base in other ways is illegal. Three kinds of storage
is illegal:
- Storage of sensitive information and opinions about a person.
JP comment: Such sensitive information is, for example, political and religiuous
views and medical information. This means that you must have a permission, before
stating your views on political or religiuous issues on the Internet. This is contrary
to the Swedish constitution, which says that the right to communicate political and
religious views should espeically be protected.
- Storage of information about persons who have no connection to the data base
owners. By connection is meant employees, customers or students in a school.
JP comment: This means that permission is required for biographies, memoirs
mentioning other people, e-mail to person, with whom you do not have one of these
kinds of relations, political discussion, in which the acts or opinions of a politician
is meantioned.
- Co-ordination and matching of two or more personal information data bases.
JP comment: By "co-ordination and matching" means any transfer
of information from one personal information data base to another. All e-mail, which
is sent through Internet, will include such matching, since both the e-mail system
for the sender and the recipient are personal information data bases.
The Data Inspection Agency has sometimes regarded such co-ordination especially
serious, if one of the data bases resides in a country which has not signed the computer
law convention of the Council of Europe  . This
means many countries, to which you are not allowed to send e-mail!
Other clauses in the Data Act
Official definition: Each organisation must keep a current list of its
personal information data bases.
A private citizen ins entitled, once a year, to get, without cost, a listing of
personal information in order to check that the information in the data base is correct.
JP comment: This means that all information data bases must be organized,
so that it is possible to find all mention of a certain person. All information about
a person must be marked with social security number, complete name, or other identification.
To write, in an e-mail, "my mother has been comitted to a hospital", will
in many ways be illegal. Firstly because it is not easy to find all such e-mail,
if the person is described in this way. Secondly because information about illnesses
of a certain person is only allowed after permission from the Data Inspection Agency.
If any piece of information is incorrect or misleading, it must be corrected or
removed.
JP comment: I feel a certain sympathy for a law, which would make it illegal
to lie. But why should such a law only cover information which is transmitted through
a computer? Why not forbid all other lying, too? Has the lawmakers seriously considered
how society would work, if all lying was forbidden, and if the authorities really
enforced such a law?
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Sometimes adherence to the law is enforced:
Now, you may wonder: Is this funny law really enforced. The answer is "yes,
sometimes". I have, myself, been ordered
by the Data Inspection Agency to shut down a BBS  .Later on, the agency permitted
the BBS, if we promised not to discuss political and religious issues in it. Note
that the Swedish constitution 
says that the rights to communicate on political and religious matters is of special
importance.
At the same time, the Data Inspection Agency decided that all messages in this
BBS must be erased after two years. This can be compared to a law, requiring libraries
to burn all books which are older than two years!
An author, who asked the Data Inspection Agency for permission to use a computer
to write a book, was refused. The author appealed to the Swedish government, which
reversed the decision by the Data Inspection Agency. This does not, however, mean
that there is no conflict betwee the Data Act and the freedom of speech. The opinion
of the Swedish government is that only authors, journalists and artists are exempted
in this way, not ordinary people.
But often, the law is not enforced:
Surely more than 99 % of all documents on the Internet, which according to the
Data Act are not permitted without permission from the Data Inspection Agency, do
not have such permission. In reality, the Data Inspection Agency acts to enforce
the law, only in very few cases. Those who try to be lawful by asking for permission
are persecuted, while those who just ignore the law are usually allowed to continue.
And this is good, since strict enforcement of the law would make almost the whole
Swedish branch of the Internet illegal.
Should the Data Act be abolished?
The basic principle in the Data Act: restrictions on personal information data
bases, is not wrong. For example, the collection of, and selling of, personal information
which is done by certain Internet information providers should be regulated. What
is wrong is that the Data Act ins written in such a way, that it covers much more
than it was really intended to control.
The Act should be changed, so that only systematic, organized collections of personal
information, and which is used for actions which concern an individual (such as approval
of loans, employment, legal actions, medical actions, direct marketing and other
business activities) is covered. Information data bases which are easily used for
undue spying on individuals should also be covered.
But other infringement of privacy in documents (text, pictures, sound) on the
Internet are better handled by the laws abou libel, than by the Data Act.
The new Personal Information Act, which will replace the Data Act on the 25th
of October, 1998, is unfortunately not much better. It introduces the very funny
idea that freedom of speech is only needed for authors, journalists and artists,
not for ordinary people.
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